Andy Clark discovers he was cheated out of a half interest in partner Mike's business, now a thriving dance hall in 1892 Chicago. Unable to win it back, Andy schemes to make Mike's position untenable. He also hopes to turn Ruby Summers, Mike's motor-mouthed burlesque queen, into a classier entertainer, and incidentally to make her his own. But at the last minute, Andy's revenge comes unravelled.

Three beatniks are brought together to rob an armored car, only to face betrayal from amongst their ranks.

Nancy Evans, lovely circus owner, has a ranch that she's never visited, but for sentimental reasons won't sell to Mike Abbott. Her partners, secretly in league with Abbott, sabotage the circus to force Nancy to sell the ranch; instead, she goes there to live. Will her neighbors, the Three Mesquiteers, be a match for the secret swindlers? And what's so valuable about that run-down ranch anyway?

Vicki Morrison is the niece of the irascible old scoundrel Uncle William Morrison. When Vicki's boyfriend and owner of a Broadway nightclub Duke Randall needs $63,000 in a hurry, Vicki fakes her own kidnapping to raise the ransom money from her uncle. Things get sticky when the phony abduction turns real.

A stage-struck small-towner is tricked in backing a bad straight play, but it turns out to be a unintentional comedy hit. Problems arise, when he is sued for plagiarism.

Sal comes to the Barbary Coast from New England to find out who murdered her brother. She gets a job signing in Dude's saloon, falls in love with Dude, then wonders if he might be involved in the murder.

A newspaper man, and former jewel thief, is accused of gem theft.

Dagwood accidentally discovers a non-flammable paint. Bad guys Dillon and Stack steal it before he can give it to his boss Radcliffe. To show off his invention, Dagwood paints Radcliffe's house with it and is disgraced when the house burns down!

The story of how 52nd Street became New York City's "Nightclub Row" in the 1930s.

When You're Smiling is distinguished by the presence of several top recording artists of 1950. The wafer-thin plotline concerns the misadventures of Texan Gerald Durham (Jerome Courtland), who arrives in the Big City to learn the ropes of the music business. Durham not only ends up with a recording contract, but also wins heroine Peggy Martin (Lola Albright) in the bargain. So much for the story. The principal selling card of When You're Smiling consists of the guest-star turns by Frankie Laine, Bob Crosby, The Modernaires, The Mills Brothers, Kay Starr and Billy Daniels.

A young woman marries against her father's will, but the happy life she expected turns into a series of tragedies.